Wayne forest drilling rights to be bid out

Wednesday

Oct 5, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 5, 2011 at 1:25 PM

A plan to auction oil and gas rights in Ohio has brought the debate over "fracking" to the Wayne National Forest. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to lease out 3,302 acres in the Wayne, most of it near Nelsonville in Athens County, to the highest bidders during a Dec. 7 mineral-rights auction.

Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch

A plan to auction oil and gas rights in Ohio has brought the debate over “fracking” to the Wayne National Forest.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to lease out 3,302 acres in the Wayne, most of it near Nelsonville in Athens County, to the highest bidders during a Dec. 7 mineral-rights auction.

It’s part of a larger plan to lease a total of 20,949 acres on federally owned lands in Ohio, Louisiana and Mississippi.

There already are about 1,200 active oil and gas wells in the Wayne, said Gary Willison, the acting forest supervisor. “We had three wells drilled last year,” Willison said.

An October 2010 Government Accountability Office report shows that in 2009, the U.S. Department of the Interior collected $9 billion in royalties from oil and gas wells drilled on federal lands.

Information from the U.S. Forest Service shows oil and gas companies hold 40 leases to a total of 8,121 acres of oil and gas rights in the Wayne.

Environmental advocates said those wells are different. New wells would be drilled into Ohio’s Utica shale, a deeply buried layer of rock thought to contain a rich reserve of natural gas, propane, butane and oil.

And Nathan Johnson, attorney for the Buckeye Forest Council, said a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses a threat to the forest and its wildlife.

“There are a lot of potential problems,” Johnson said.

In fracking, up to 5 million gallons of water, sand and chemicals are injected down wells to fracture the shale and free trapped gas and oil.

Eighteen vertical and horizontal wells have been drilled in Ohio’s Utica shale since 2009, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. In horizontal drilling, gas companies drill vertically and then add a horizontal shaft to reach the shale.

In some cases, drilling companies are offering rich bonuses to landowners to get them to sign away mineral-rights leases, exceeding $3,500 an acre in some areas of eastern Ohio.

Shale energy supporters said Ohio could experience a drilling boom similar to Pennsylvania’s, where more than 3,800 natural-gas wells have been drilled into Marcellus shale since 2005.

Willison said he’s not certain that energy companies will drill all the way to the Utica shale. A 151-acre parcel near Raccoon Creek in Gallia County appears to be outside the Utica shale area that geologists think holds the most gas and oil.

He said his office reviews oil- and gas-company drilling plans and drilling sites to make sure they pose no risk to threatened or endangered species. If there are concerns, drilling companies must find new drilling sites.

Tom Stewart, vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said drilling has been done safely in the Wayne for years.

“I don’t see why drilling a well to the (Utica) shale would be any different in the Wayne as it would anywhere else in Ohio,” Stewart said.

shunt@dispatch.com

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